


it's for the best

by hotmesslewis



Category: Lewis and Clark
Genre: F/M, M/M, This Is Angry and Filthy and Painful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 22:27:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12045585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmesslewis/pseuds/hotmesslewis
Summary: Meriwether Lewis Is Mad As Hell And He Isn't Going To Take It Any More





	it's for the best

William Clark walked out of the bedroom at the side of the house in St. Louis, weak-kneed and sweating in the heat of the July Sunday sun, and looked at Meriwether Lewis dimly. “She’s doing quite poorly, I’m afraid.”

Lewis looked up from the newspaper he was reading to gaze at Clark coolly. “Relax, Billy, she’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure this is all entirely normal.”

It was almost as if Clark had never seen a pregnant woman before. Considering it with some distance, Lewis recognized that every insignificant little sickness likely did seem more dramatic when it was your own wife who was lying in the other room, ill and with child. Still, Julia Hancock Clark was a strong girl ( _damn her_ ), and William Clark was unquestionably over-reacting ( _damn him_ ).

“You’re right, of course. Of course you’re right, Meriwether.” Rambling, idiotically. Clark couldn’t keep still. He was sweating, so much ( _why was he sweating so much?_ ), walking back and forth across the long, narrow central room of the small house in St. Louis, stopping at the door again to look in on his wife for a moment. “She’s asleep now, bless her.” _Damn her_ : so uncharitable, _Meriwether Lewis, you selfish, heartless_ —but he stopped himself. Relief, though, evident on his exhausted face as Clark closed the door behind him. So much relief, and Lewis saw that he truly loved the silly woman.

But, with relief then, why did Clark still sweat so much at the heat of the day, when Lewis sat so cool? Why could he not keep his feet still? The newspapers, all public scandal and social politics, nothing of real news, lay beside Lewis, abandoned, the restless behavior of his friend ( _his love— his_ former _lover_ ) far more captivating than the insipidity between those flimsy pages. “Is something the matter, Billy?”

The pacing stopped. Clark turned his dull hazel eyes, worn like leather, on the lean younger man (hair graying already, while Clark’s was still thick and fully, flaming red in the hot sun pouring in the windows— _when did you get so old, Meriwether Lewis_ ) reclining on his couch.

“God damn it, Meriwether.”

And Clark was across the distance of the room and on top of him, Clark’s mouth pressing to his own, parting his lips, Clark pushing his body tightly against Lewis, parting his legs. “God, you taste so good. How could I have forgotten how wonderful you taste?” Words said against Lewis’s neck.

_I don’t know, Billy,_ Lewis thought with contempt and cold anger. _Maybe because you haven’t tasted me in ages?_ But he said nothing, pulling at the hands that fought to take off his coat. Lewis would not allow it, raising his foot to Clark’s chest, pushing Clark away from him.

“Do you have any idea,” Clark stood over him, panting. “Any idea how hard it is for me to see you, to be so near you every day and not able to touch you?”

Did _he_ , Meriwether Lewis, have any idea? Like hell, he did. He was on his feet. “Any idea what it’s like for _you_?” He would not yell, _damn him_ , but Clark would know, Clark would _finally_ know what it was like, seeing him daily with that woman— “How in hell do you think it’s been for me, Billy? You have your,” he couldn’t bring himself to say the word, _wife_ , “woman, and who have I got? No one. _No. One._ I see you daily with her, touching her, kissing her, and I hear you when you’re with her, more often than you’d care to believe. Do _you_ have any idea what _that’s_ like?” Words, hissed, thrown at the redheaded man, flushing darkly. “I know, I can just imagine what you must be doing to her. And worse, I know how it feels when you move, I know how _you_ feel, the spots that make you simply _ache_ for, for me, and so many nights, how much longer am I expected to take this, William Clark?”

Stepping across the room, grabbing Clark by the front of his fine shirt ( _nearly soaked through with sweat, with heat_ ), shoving him back against the door to the bedroom Clark shared with Julia, Clark’s eyes closing at Lewis’s touch, his teeth clashing at the impact of his back on the wood, Lewis thrusting his body against Clark’s. Clark’s moan seemed to spring from the darkest depths within him.

“You know that I still—” Lewis, stopping Clark’s words with his mouth; _no sense in having Billy admitted to something (that wasn’t true) that he’d later regret._ Clark’s hands were on Lewis, one spread on his back, the other rubbing the front of his trousers, the small space between the men, for a moment, then curving across Lewis’s hip, taking hold of his ass. Lewis, breaking from the kiss and gasping, but still furious ( _the heat, the hardening below his waist_ ), full of rage, this man, _with his wife_ , would not, did not deserve the privilege of Meriwether Lewis.

“Shit.” The hands were off the body, on the clothes, clawing at them, struggling to get them off, but Lewis pulled his arms back, wrapped his hands around Clark’s wrists and spread their arms across the doorframe, holding Clark to the wall. Lewis would stay dressed until he decided his clothes would come off.

“Billy, stop it, God damn you.”

“Meriwether, good Christ, can’t we just—” _fuck_ but the word was lost, when Clark’s mouth covered his and moved on him but was the word really lost, or did Clark speak it silently into Lewis’s mouth? The shift of his lips, it could have been the word, the moment when their teeth collided, the opening of Clark’s mouth to take Lewis’s tongue, could it have been the letters soundlessly strung together? Lewis knew his intention, regardless, the vulgarity he would have ( _might have; did_ ) used, and the stiffening it always brought him to, only increased by the months of deprivation. God, he was so full of heat, was it possible that his cock could be this hard, and he wanted ( _needed_ ) to be in this man so badly—

But Clark, pulling back, his teeth on Lewis’s ear, then speaking ( _damn him!_ ) again.

“My wife—”

Suddenly the heat was gone from Lewis’s veins, replaced with iciness like the earliest of snow thawing in the spring

“—not well, with child, you know, we haven’t been—”

_Fucking idiotic rambling!_ Of course Lewis knew that Julia Clark was expecting Clark’s child. How could he not, the way Clark had strutted around the house, the whole God damned town of St. Louis after finding out, as if pressing a woman into his bed and filling her with his seed was some grand accomplishment, instead of being the most ( _disgustingly_ ) natural thing in the world? Well, Lewis hoped he was pleased with himself, and that all of his God damned children (sometimes Lewis wondered, very sincerely, if that was not the only reason why Clark married a woman to begin with, to produce a gaggle of brats that mirrored the one from his own childhood, _but the way he looked at Julia—_ ) would give him all of the trouble he hoped from fatherhood.

Lewis knew, instinctively, why Clark had tried to say it—justification, for himself, for his transgression, his sin, his unfaithfulness, _never mind that in marrying Julia Hancock he had been unfaithful to Lewis_ , but that thought was insanity in and of itself, and why in God’s name did he have to bring up his _wife_ at a time like this?

So Lewis pressed his knee tightly into Clark’s crotch and his teeth tore at Clark’s lips: _rage._

“Sweet Christ, Meri,” and in a louder voice than Clark probably meant or anticipated. He was so loud already, but then he never had been quiet, and using such profanities as he never dared utter to his wife. Lewis knew—too often he heard them together, Clark giving voice as he moved, the soft gasps and moans and occasionally the name from the woman, but mostly Clark, and, oh, Clark, who was now fighting to get his hands free from Lewis’s unyielding grip—“God in heaven, Meriwether, let me take off _something_.”

So loud already, he’d be screaming long before he came, and Lewis was sorely tempted to keep pressing him on, he’d never seen the man quite so hungry, so desperate before. And here was William Clark, making love to a man outside of, against the door of the bedchamber he shared with his wife, and positively _yelling_ for that man in a way that he never did for his wife. Surely not even she could sleep through his calls (Lewis never could, when Clark was fucking his wife in the next room, their bed against the wall next to Lewis’s, and he could practically _smell_ their sex, _damn them_ ); surely, even in her sickness and her delicate condition, she would investigate, to ensure that her husband was all right, and, God in heaven, what a sight she would see then. Her husband, falling through the door into their marriage chamber, naked and erect and scrambling, clawing back to the man, her husband’s best friend, standing before them like a vengeful god, Clark’s eyes dark, wide, wild with his desire for that man. Or would it be better to have her see her husband taking another man, laying with Lewis spread beneath him on the floor or Lewis leaned over a chair, with Clark deep inside him and closing to climax _and declaring love_ —

Surely, confronted with a scene, she would have no choice but to leave Clark, to divorce him, yes? Or would she ( _foolish woman, damn her_ ) accept Clark’s deeply felt words of apology but demand that Lewis ( _the governor, His Excellency_ ) be banished from her house and her husband’s life?

No, she would surely leave him, how could she not, confronted with such a shameless, sinful ( _shocking, appalling, disgusting_ ) scene, the betrayal of their marriage vows, the ultimate unfaithfulness—

_And then! Oh, the scandal!_

Whenever she walked down the street, Clark’s redheaded brat in her arms, tucked close to her bosom, people would talk about her.

_“Left her husband, poor woman, now raising that child on her own, no means of support—”_

_“Why again? Some major scandal.”_

_“Caught her husband William Clark fucking Meriwether Lewis. Marriage ended on the spot—”_

_“What, not_ the _Meriwether Lewis? The governor?”_

_“One and the same. His Excellency himself.”_

_“—how horrid!”_

_“They were explorers, commanders both, with the Corps of Discovery, you know—”_

_“—yes, of course—”_

_“—had to endure all sorts of horrors, depravities—”_

_“—I always did wonder about—”_

_“—and apparently some of them actually_ enjoyed _such a thing, can you imagine?”_

_“Shocking.”_

_“Appalling.”_

_“Disgusting.”_

And when she left him (it was no longer _if_ ; it was now _when_ ), when she left him, what would they do? Because, of course. Of course, it would be impossible silence the rumors, the scandal, the talk, disapproval ( _shocking_ ), fear ( _appalling_ ), loathing ( _disgusting_ ) of the idle masses ( _the judgment of the idle masses? Well, fuck them!_ ). Losing status in society, losing position in the eyes of other men—what would the horrified President say when he learned the hometown hero, his favorite secretary and protégé, had been caught committing such a ( _shocking, appalling, disgusting_ ) transgression? ( _Even the President? Well, fuck him, too!_ )—losing their jobs, families. And where would they go, they would never again be accepted by the good people of the earth, and what would they do? _But they would go on together, back as they belonged, lovers again_ —a hope he dared not admit to himself.

Oh, the scandal. Lewis would have welcomed it warmly, like an old enemy to the dueling ground.

Sweet Christ, he could _taste_ it.

But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

But Clark was grinding against him and sucking on his neck, even devoid of the use of his hands, and Lewis was becoming increasingly convinced that this man was desire incarnate, every inch of him from the thick red hair Clark was growing out, now nearly long enough to be tied back into a queue and the hazel eyes that turned dark like wet tree bark with passion and the mouth, the rounded lips, the thickness of the tongue, and, God in heaven, the way his hard abdomen and his hips felt squeezed tight between Lewis’s thighs, and, holy hell, when he moved in Lewis, and he _wanted_ Lewis—

_How could he_ resist, but he had to, he was going to, or Meriwether Lewis would be eternally damned—

_—he had little doubt that he wasn’t already anyway—_

—no, Billy Clark with his _wife_ expecting his _child_ (two words: they sounded so soft, why did they feel like two bullets, to the chest, to the head?) would not take Meriwether Lewis.

So Lewis pressed his lean hips and his own hardness firmly against Clark to stop Clark from rolling on him, causing Clark to let loose a loud moan and throw back his head, banging it against the door. He would take, hell, he _wanted_ all of Lewis’s rage and his neglect and his fears _and his pain_ ( _but, surprisingly, not all of that rage and fear and pain was caused by William Clark_ ) but Lewis would not give it to him, not now that he finally was ready for it.

For the simple sake of that small word: wife.

_Three words, Meriwether._

Lewis let go of Clark’s hands as he buried his face in Clark’s hair, but Clark kept his arms as they were, spread across the doorframe behind him, fingernails digging into the wooded frame as Lewis lowered his head and his tongue ( _shocking, appalling, disgusting_ ) was in the heat behind Clark’s ear, words panted into Clark’s ear, “I have something I need to say.”

Lewis’s hands were on the waistband of Clark’s breeches, hooked through the front ( _shocking, appalling, disgusting_ ) as Lewis kept his hips pressed to Clark but arched his back away. The tongue, Lewis’s tongue, flicking ( _three words, Meriwether)_ Clark’s earlobe then tracing Clark’s jaw line, slight up his chin and across his lips, tempting Clark to try to take that tongue into his mouth but when he opened his lips Lewis stopped them and held them open for a moment with his own, before moaning the words into Clark. “Something I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time now.”

Clark was shaking already as Lewis lessened his pressure and looked down at the man and pulled at his waistband, his breeches so tight ( _three words, Meriwether_ ) around Clark’s erection, tugging the pants down over Clark’s hardness ( _Shocking! Appalling! Disgusting!_ ) without troubling to undo the front flap first, knowing how it must rub and pull on his rigid length, Clark gasping and swearing as his breeches fell off him and _how must that feel_. Clark was shaking already and Lewis was leaning off of him but curved over him, nuzzling his head close to Clark’s ear again, and then he took Clark’s throbbing shaft in his hand, and pressed down against it, _hard_ , and whispered his three words, wrapping his lips around the sound of every letter with cold emphasis, into Clark’s ear:

“Go fuck yourself.”

Lewis left Clark trembling as he turned and walked out of the house without looking back.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay confession: I was always oddly, like, extremely proud of this one. It's not easy to put into words exactly why. Mostly I think it's because . . . so much Lewis and Clark fic (including the stuff I've written) is so. Angsty. It's all full of longing and sickly sweetness. When the fact is, Meriwether Lewis was one crazy-ass motherfucker. And I mean that quite literally--several major Lewis and Clark scholars have pegged the man as bipolar, which I honestly will defend to my death as being true. So to just depict him as this faithful, longing puppy is a bit inaccurate, I think, especially when the historical record indicates the man had one hell of a temper at times. To ignore that, to assume that (were he and Clark lovers) he never took that gorgeous temper of his out on Clark is just ignoring the truth of the man, and of basic human nature, I think. I don't know. A human Lewis is just vitally important to me. We take all of our pain and our thousand little hurts out on the people we love and trust the most, often, so why wouldn't have he? Anyway, that's just my two cents, and the reason why this exists. It honestly almost brings me to tears lmao. Also it is excessively dirty I'm sorry.


End file.
